Saturday, January 12, 2013

HDL Cholesterol Levels Improve on Atkins Diet

I’ve recently had a few readers ask me about the potential
cardiovascular risks that might be associated with the Atkins Diet. Since that
seems to be a common question among those who are new to low carbing or those
who haven’t had cholesterol problems before, I thought I’d address some of the
issues surrounding High-Density Lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol that I didn’t
talk about in my latest post on LDL Cholesterol and Blood Clots.

If you haven’t read that post, you might want to do so. It
discusses the coronary artery disease pathway, how getting your insulin levels
under control can slow down the heart disease process, and how a low-carb diet
can actually reverse plaque buildup in some individuals. In addition, blood
clots and potential strokes have nothing to do with dietary fats, so you might
want to check out that information too, especially if you have a family history
of stroke or blood clots.

Is the Atkins Diet Dangerous?

For years, the prevailing view among medical authorities has
been that the Atkins Diet is flat out dangerous. Kidney failure, osteoporosis,
and cardiovascular disease have all been said to result from following low-carb
diets. Most of these reports come from individuals and medical organizations or
authorities who have no personal experience with low-carb diets. They are
basing their professional opinions on scientific tests that haven’t even used
the exact parameters involved in the Atkins Diet.

In addition, scientific evidence itself is highly unreliable
when it comes to individual nutrition because it takes a specific group of people,
restricts their diet to a particular nutritional regimen, and then projects the
results those individuals got onto the rest of us. While scientific testing can
be helpful, it is not absolute. Each of us is different. What holds true for a
test participant, or even a group of participants, might not hold true for you
or me as an individual. Testing can only give us generalizations.

What constitutes danger is blindly accepting blanket
statements as true for everyone, and that includes many statements made within
the low-carb community.

While a low-carb diet in theory is not dangerous, HOW
that low-carb diet is implemented most certainly can be. I learned that lesson for
myself recently when my latest cholesterol tests showed that moving from a
lower-fat, low-carb diet to a low-carb, high-fat diet wasn’t good for me.
However, others within the low-carb community have experienced different
results, so what hold true for me might not hold true for you.

So as always, the answer is: It depends on how your body
reacts to what you’re doing. Just because my calcium and artery tests came back
“excellent” when doing lower-fat, low-carb, that doesn’t mean that standing
will remain the same if I up the amount of dietary fats I’m eating. We each
have our own sweet spot, and the trick is to find what works best for you.

Studies Point to Improved Cardiovascular Health from Low-Carb
Diets

When it comes to HDL cholesterol, studies have always shown
that a low-carb diet improves HDL levels. For example, in a fairly recent study
published in May of 2010, Frederick Samaha, MD, and Gary Foster, PhD, demonstrated
many positive effects from following a low-carbohydrate diet. They found that low-carb
diets reduced triglycerides, improved insulin sensitivity, and significantly increased
HDL cholesterol levels.

Due to the rumors and accusations made against low-carb
diets, however, these findings greatly surprised the researchers. In fact, they even
went so far as to say that their “initial findings suggest that such diets may
not have the adverse effects that were anticipated.” However, despite the
healthy cholesterol levels, Foster questioned whether the effects would continue
throughout a maintenance program.

Although Foster’s previous one-year study found the Atkins
Diet to have beneficial effects on cholesterol and heart disease, his more
recent diet-study results published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, “Weight
and Metabolic Outcomes After 2 Years on a Low-Carbohydrate Verses Low-Fat
Diet,” were not what he expected either.

That scientific study consisted of 307 obese patients. Half
were assigned to an honest Atkins Induction that allowed 20 grams of
carbohydrate daily for 3 months, and then a 5-gram per day increase per week (as
Atkins recommends) until the patient achieved desired weight. The other half
were placed on a standard low-fat diet plan consisting of 1200 to 1800 calories
per day, with no more than 30 percent of those calories coming from fat.

During the first 6 months, the low-carb group had a greater
reduction in diastolic blood pressure, triglyceride levels, and
very-low-density lipoprotein (LVDL) cholesterol than the low-fat group. They
also had larger increases (23 percent) in HDL levels at all “time” points during
the study. Bone mineral density and kidney function didn’t change with either
group.

These results didn’t change throughout the entire 2-year
study. In addition, the slight increase in LDL cholesterol seen in the first
few weeks returned to normal or was lower by the end of the study. Foster
reported that low-carb diets had favorable changes in cardiovascular health over
the long-term, which made them a viable option for weight-loss diets.

Raising HDL Cholesterol Levels
Helps Lower LDL Cholesterol

The purpose of focusing on cholesterol levels is to reduce
cardiovascular risks and improve health. While most individuals focus on
lowering LDL levels, raising HDL can be even more beneficial.

LDL carries cholesterol to the body’s tissues. It’s
sometimes referred to as bad cholesterol because if LDL builds up in artery
walls, it can lead to narrowed arteries and plaque. HDL is known as good
cholesterol because it picks up the LDL cholesterol and carries it back to the
liver to be recycled or removed from the body. Since HDL’s job is to rid the
body of excess bad cholesterol, the higher your HDL levels, the greater your health
benefits.

Long-term Atkins Diet Results in
Healthy Cholesterol Levels

The Atkins Diet, as well as other low-carbohydrate diets,
has been opposed by medical authorities for many years. Although several scientific
studies have found these weight-loss diets to result in healthy cholesterol
levels and cardiovascular markers, the Atkins Diet and other low-carb
alternatives continue to be perceived as potential health risks.

While that may be true for those of us who are sensitive to
dietary fats, for the greater majority of people who embrace the low-carb
lifestyle, cholesterol levels and health markers greatly improve when following
the Atkins Diet as written. However, with so many within the low-carb community
altering the original Atkins Diet to fit their own metabolic issues, it’s
essential that we keep a close eye on our own cholesterol levels to make sure
that what we’re doing is truly healthy for us.

High cholesterol levels doesn’t mean that you have to
abandon a low-carb lifestyle, so in my next post, I plan to talk about some of
the things you can do if your cholesterol tests are not improving on a low-carb
diet.

1 comment:

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Vickie Ewell has been writing online since 2007. She first began writing for Suite 101 where she was the feature writer and topic editor for their autism section. She is also the author of the autism section at Health Mango. Currently, she writes for several online writing sites, including Infobarrel and Textbroker. She has several blogs that address the problems and concerns for those with celiac disease, dairy allergies, low-carb weight loss, eating on a budget, online writing, and spirituality. She has extensive experience in working with people who have disabilities and spent several years as a culinary specialist for several boys' homes until she had to quit due to celiac disease. In her free time, she enjoys gluten-free recipe creation, researching health topics, and spending time with the hubby.